Why these are worrying times for British F1 fans

I worry for the British Formula 1 fan.

This will be the last season when he or she will be able to watch races live on free-to-air TV before the sport disappears behind a paywall on Sky Sports in 2019, with only highlights plus the live British GP required to be on a free-to-air channel.

Channel 4's three-year shared rights deal with Sky, to cover half the races live and the rest as highlights, comes to an end in November.

Compared with the past decades of exclusively live F1 coverage on the BBC or ITV, the numbers have been modest in this share model. But it has at least provided access to the ordinary F1 fan who can't - or won't - pay to watch a race.

Sky's exclusive deal, one of Bernie Ecclestone's final acts and worth close to $1billion from 2019 through to 2024, takes the sport behind a paywall in the UK for the first time.

Bernie took advantage of a bidding war between Sky and BT Sport for live rights and dramatically raised the annual revenue for F1 TV rights in the UK. But the pact the two broadcasters made on recent bidding in the Premier League rights auction shows those days are gone.

In France and Spain, F1 has hidden behind a paywall for a few years, although the return of the French GP has triggered a modest reversal of that trend - terrestrial network TF1 will host some live races this season.

In 2018, Italy goes in the opposite direction, as F1 will be deeper behind a paywall on Sky Italia and this could provide some pointers for what F1 fans in Britain might expect next season.

The tifosi will have to watch the first 13 races of the season on Sky Sport, Italy's Sky channel. The Italian GP will then be live on free-to-air channel RAI, before a handful of live races, mainly in the US times zones, will also be aired on Tv8, a free-to-air station, controlled by Sky.

Italy could provide pointers for what F1 fans in Britain might expect

This mirrors a crucial detail about Sky's deal in the UK; it is in their gift (not F1's) to decide which channel will get the package of live British Grand Prix and highlights of the other rounds.

Hosting this package on a mass-market channel like BBC or ITV would help keep F1 front of mind for the terrestrial viewer - much like BBC Match of the Day does for the Premier League. They could expect to get three to four million watching F1 highlights on either of those channels. It acts as what is known in the industry as "barker content", exposing people to F1; if they like it enough they may be converted to paying for it on Sky.

However, in Italy Sky placed that secondary package on a channel they control. They could do the same in the UK, although there is some debate about what exactly 'free-to-air' means in the UK's modern digital TV landscape. That will be a crucial decision, which British F1 fans will learn about at some point later this year.

For those who can afford to pay to watch F1, there is no question that Sky provides a great service. All the practice sessions are live, there is a lot of wrap-around programming and the presentation team, skippered by my old colleague Martin Brundle, is sharp.

But what about those who cannot afford it? Many people don't even attend a grand prix in person, even in their own country, and for many the main reason is cost.

Liberty Media's ownership strategy is based on bringing the sport closer to the fans. Liberty wants to make money, but it wants to do it at races by offering fans more for their money: as well as a race, there is music, food, a festival at each grand prix.

But what about on TV? Without reaching for their wallets, F1 fans can follow the sport in greater depth than ever before thanks to websites and social media. There's a whole generation of young followers who don't watch a 90-minute GP live on TV, but stay across it through social feeds and eSports.

The newly announced F1 Live OTT streaming platform is a great step in the right direction and at between £6 and £9 a month looks priced correctly, but it's not available in the UK or Italy. In response, Sky has lowered the price of the F1 pass on NOW TV, their OTT platform, to £16 per month.

I recently hosted an F1 business forum in London at which a prominent F1 sponsor spelled out how she and her peers see this developing situation. To be involved as a sponsor in F1 today means making the most of the digital and social media opportunities and cutting through with creative content and imaginative social media strategy.

But they also believe that what underpins F1's massive reach is that global TV audience. The paywall, which can cut an audience down to around ten to 20% of its free-to-air size, is as much a concern to them as it is to the poor downtrodden F1 fan.